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The coldest air mass of the entire winter is coming to New Jersey this weekend. Arctic high pressure will drop out of Canada over the Great Lakes and literally hurl down some of the coldest air on the planet through Valentine’s Day with the eastern side of its anti-cyclonic flow.

As you can see temperatures at 850mb are modeled to dip into the -20 to -30 Celsius range (-4 to -22 Fahrenheit). It is important to note that this is not how cold the surface will get. Not all cold extrapolates to the surface but I do think we could be looking at 0-15 Fahrenheit (NNJ to SNJ) during the overnight periods of this outbreak with highs failing to escape the single digits/teens.

In English: It’s going to be a very cold this weekend. Once this current system is out of the region tomorrow, temperatures will gradually begin to drop and then bottom out Saturday into Sunday. It might be ~Feb 20 before the mid-levels of the atmosphere come up for air above freezing. I don’t see any snow storms that surround the cold this weekend. But given the strong NW flow that should occur over the Great Lakes with the intrusion of this Arctic outbreak, lake effect flurries and snow showers (flizzards) are possible. Be safe! JC

Model images courtesy of Tropical Tidbits. Cover image taken by me during last February’s Arctic outbreak from Harvey Cedars, NJ.

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